


Unchanging

by linndechir



Category: The Accountant (2016)
Genre: Getting Back Together, M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 08:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15991661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: They used to understand each other implicitly. Ten years later, it's not that easy anymore, but some things haven't changed.





	Unchanging

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scorpiod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiod/gifts).



Christian had been watching him.

At least Brax assumed so. Maybe it had simply been the admission that Chris had known where he was all these years that made him paranoid, made him mistake reflections on a rooftop for the glint of a scope or a tall man ducking away into a side alley for his brother. Maybe. Or maybe he just liked the idea that Chris had stuck around this time, that he hadn’t taken off towards who the fuck knows where again, not to be seen until the next statistically unlikely coincidence. That was a far more painful thought that Brax didn’t want to dwell on, so he told himself he was being watched.

Told himself that as he settled into a decent but not flashy hotel somewhere south of Nashville for no other reason than that he didn’t know anyone there, didn’t have any contacts in the area, which meant that nobody should come looking for him, and it was as good a place as any to lay low while he let the bruises on his face heal and found himself some new contracts.

Told himself that as he spent a few days watching TV and eating junk food and not thinking about the fact that his brother had been alive, all these years, alive and out of prison for who knew how long, and hadn’t bothered to contact him. Kept telling himself that as he picked up some guy in a bar and brought him back to the hotel room that he was almost certain was being watched from the building across the street, and he made sure to keep the curtains open when he sucked the guy off and then let him return the favour. And maybe he had a type, sure, but then tall, built, dark-haired men weren’t exactly a particularly weird or rare type to have. He wondered if Chris knew about that, too, wondered just how exactly and how closely his brother had been keeping tabs on him. If he’d even bothered to it personally or if he’d paid other people for it.

One day later Brax returned to his hotel room after a relaxed evening run to find his brother sitting on the couch, back to the wall and looking uncomfortable in that way he tended to in unfamiliar environments. Just sitting there like he’d only been out to get milk instead of disappearing from Brax’s life for ten years. But Brax knew if he said that, if he started things like that again, there’d be another fight, a thrashed hotel room this time, and maybe next time Chris wouldn’t show again. He’d got at least some of his anger out of his system last time – and still had the bruises to show for it – and figured maybe this time they should try talking right away.

“Didn’t think you’d really come,” Brax said and pushed the lollipop back into his mouth. Stupid habit. Just one of those things they hadn’t been allowed to have as kids and even ten years after his father had been put in the ground, here he still was with his little meaningless rebellions. He let himself sink on the couch opposite Chris’s, elbows on his knees while he watched him. 

He hadn’t got a good look at him in the dark last time. He looked older, yeah, obviously, and there were still some faint purple bruises around his eyes, most of which Brax had probably put there. He didn’t feel too bad. They’d done worse to each other during sparring as children. But apart from the bruises and a few extra lines around his eyes, he didn’t really look different. Same short hair because Chris hated the feeling of hair tickling his neck or his temples, same posture, same way of looking and not looking at him. 

“I said I would,” Chris said. He was frowning and it took Brax a moment to remember why. He pulled the lollipop from his mouth with a deliberately obnoxious popping sound, then put it carelessly down on the coffee table.

“Right. You hate that sound, I remember. And you could have changed your mind. Or lied to me.” Not that they’d ever really lied to each other, not about anything big, but that had been before. Who the hell knew what they’d do or didn’t do to each other now? Things used to be clear and easy between them, and now Brax didn’t know what the fuck the rules of this were. Maybe that was how other people felt around his brother, lost and fumbling for the right way to talk to him.

“You want some coffee?” Brax said after another moment and got back up. Back in the day he’d been used to these half-conversations with his brother. As kids they’d often just been comfortably quiet at each other, but as they grew older, as Brax got tired of keeping his mouth shut just so he wouldn’t be another problem their father had to deal with, he’d gotten good at guessing what Chris was thinking even when he didn’t say it, to fill in the gaps, sometimes to just say what he figured Chris’s part of the conversation was because Chris usually corrected him if he got it wrong. It had worked just fine back then. Now he felt like a kid sitting through a fucking exam nobody had told him about. 

“Yes, please,” Chris said, formalities he’d rehearsed a long time ago that they’d never really bothered with between the two of them. After a minute he stood and followed Brax to the suite’s kitchenette, watched him make coffee with the hotel’s crappy little coffee machine, watched him fish milk out of the mini-fridge he’d only bought in the hope that Chris might be by.

“So, you decided I could handle the terrible dangers of seeing you every now and then?” Brax said when he offered Chris his cup. Chris hated sarcasm, but after being ignored for ten years there were limits to how much Brax could bring himself to care about that. “You shoulda called me.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to go to the funeral. And –“

“I don’t just mean the fucking funeral. I mean after. From prison. Or when you got out. At any fucking point in those ten years, you could have bothered to let me know you were alive.”

Chris looked like he wanted to say something, but now that Brax had started talking, the words didn’t want to be ebbed any more than the last time they’d seen each other. “You know, sometimes I tried to convince myself you were dead? Had to be? ‘cos that fucked me up less than knowing that you were out there not giving a shit, just cutting all contact like – fuck, like we haven’t had enough family walking out on us.”

And Chris had been proper family, not like that bitch who’d abandoned them because they weren’t good enough for her, because they were too much work or some bullshit like that. He never would have thought Chris would just leave like that. He and Chris, they belonged together. Always had.

“I told you last time –“

“Yeah, yeah, your clients are so fucking dangerous. One more reason to have me watch your back. That’s what we used to do, remember? Watch each other’s back? Doesn’t matter that you’re a better shot or punch harder than me, you don’t have eyes in the back of your head and I saved your ass more than I can count. We were both always safer together. Fuck!”

He’d gulped the hot coffee down too fast, burning his tongue, the bitterness mixing unpleasantly with the sugary aftertaste of the lollipop. Chris was quiet for a bit, like he was trying to figure out what to say to all that, and then settled for, “I’m here now.”

“Yeah, for how long?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” Flat tone, face half hidden behind the cup when he took a sip from the coffee. More carefully than Brax had. They drank in silence for a while, Brax leaning against the kitchen counter, Chris standing in front of him, gaze flitting over him like he couldn’t look away, or maybe like he was trying to remember every detail. He was within arm’s reach, and just like in that wrecked living room in the dead of night, it struck Brax like a fucking hammer how much he’d missed him. Missed his voice, missed his weird little habits, missed the general feeling of not being alone in a room without being with a stranger – anyone who wasn’t family. Anyone who wasn’t Chris, really, because being around their father had rarely ever been comfortable. But his brother? That was like being alone and not being alone at the same time; and when he wasn’t there, something was missing. Brax had gotten used to that over the years – he wasn’t the type to brood and mope about things he couldn’t change – but having him back only made it clearer how big that hole in his life had been. That big black nothing at the back of each room.

They drank their coffee, and then Brax poured himself a second cup without asking Chris if he wanted one (because his brother never had a second cup of coffee at a time) and started talking just because it was easier running his mouth than standing there in silence when the silence between them felt all wrong. Talked about previous jobs, what he’d been up to these past years, smiled whenever Chris said “I know”, shook his head when Chris refused to say just how he’d been watching him.

Brax had finished the second cup when Chris suddenly said, with no connection to what Brax had been talking about, but in a tone that suggested the question had been on his mind for a while, “That man yesterday.”

It took Brax a moment to remember who the hell Chris was talking about, and when he did, he tensed a little. Tall, built, dark-haired. His name had been Phil or Pete or something like that. Brax hadn’t been interested enough in the man to bother remembering.

“What about him?” And then, because Brax’s mouth always worked quicker than his brain, he added, “You saw that? Watched that?”

Chris wasn’t meeting his eyes, in itself nothing unusual, except that it felt like he was very pointedly looking away. His hands were still holding on to his cold, long empty cup, and he’d sat down on one of the too small chairs in the kitchenette. 

“Did you know him before?” 

Brax raised both eyebrows. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d talked about Brax being with anyone else. Once or twice Chris had asked, mostly curious, intrigued by the idea of simply chatting up a stranger in a bar for a quick fuck, something that seemed as unfeasible to him as the maths he could do in his head did to other people. But most of the time, they didn’t talk about it. Hell, most of the time there hadn’t been anything to talk about, back when they’d spent enough time around each other. Brax hadn’t needed to find strangers in bars when he could still see Chris every day.

“You asking if I’m, what, dating him? Come on, you haven’t done a good job stalking me if you think I’ve had time for that kinda thing. Anyway, what would I talk about to some lawyer or computer programmer or something? Hi, I’m Brax, I kill people for a living, what is it you do?” It was a good answer, one that didn’t need adding that he’d never _wanted_ to see any of the men he fucked again. He barely knew anyone he’d in all good conscience call a friend, let alone developed some warm, fuzzy feelings that made him want to play house with some guy who’d never understand the life he lived. “I just needed to get my dick sucked, that’s all.”

He was watching Chris’s face intently – the familiar way his throat moved when he swallowed, the way his gaze flicked to Brax’s crotch for a second before he went back to trying to look anywhere but at him. Brax had never been good at backing off. He stepped closer, right into Chris’s personal space, close enough that he knew it’d be uncomfortable if he were anyone else. 

“When was the last time you got your dick sucked, hm? I really fucking hope it wasn’t the last time I did it.”

He could barely see Chris’s face from this angle, but he could hear the sharp intake of breath, the rustling of his clothes when he shifted on the chair. Knowing Chris – if he still knew him, but his brother didn’t seem to have changed _that_ much in the past decade – that had in fact been the last time. Brax felt blue-balled just imagining it.

And then another thought occurred to him, or rather it didn’t occur to him just then, but surfaced from where he kept it buried and hidden under all those layers any sane man keeps around the painful bullshit that’d drive you crazy if you thought about it too much.

“Is this why you left? Why you never called?”

Before – before the army even, back when they’d spent all their time together, even shared a bed half the time because Chris slept better when his brother was there – Brax had always been the one to initiate things. Looking back, he couldn’t say what had brought him to the point where sticking his hand down his brother’s pyjamas had seemed like just the thing to do. Teenage horniness directed at the person closest to him, genuine want, an obsessive need to share everything with Chris, boyish dickishness making him push just to see if someone would push back. Maybe a bit of everything. But Chris had never pushed back, Chris had always gone along with everything Brax wanted to do, and sometimes Brax had wondered about that. 

Not that Chris didn’t know any better. Despite what some people thought, he was neither stupid nor unaware of social norms. They’d both known that what they were doing was weird, that other brothers didn’t kiss, didn’t get each other off with their hands and then later their mouths, didn’t rub against each other and fall asleep with Brax still draped all over Chris just like when they’d been younger, because Chris liked feeling Brax’s weight on top of him.

But he’d wondered if maybe Chris was humouring him somehow. If he figured that Brax was putting up with his weird shit all day long, so now it was his turn to put up with Brax’s weird shit. Or if he’d maybe said yes because he figured everyone else would always say no to him. Brax had always wondered, and he’d never asked, because at the end of the day Chris always put his hands on him just as impatiently as the other way around. 

“No,” Chris said after a few moments, and Brax believed him. Believed that Chris at least believed all that bullshit about protecting him. “Not only.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” 

Chris shrugged uncomfortably. He looked like he had a lot to say and not the right words to say it. He was tapping his fingers on his knee, a rhythmic pattern that had once been as familiar as the sound of his breathing, but right now it irritated the fuck out of Brax. He only kept himself from grabbing Chris’s wrist to stop him because he knew that made it worse. Instead he grabbed Chris’s chin to make him look up. The touch burnt, the feeling of stubble under his fingertips; first time he’d touched him in ten years that wasn’t a punch.

“If it hadn’t been for me, your life would have been normal,” Chris said quietly. Brax shook his head.

“I never resented you for that, just pop. He’s the one who dragged us from base to base, made us train like we were soldiers at ten years old. Wasn’t your fault.”

Chris opened his mouth, probably to defend their father the way he’d always done, but then he thought better of it and simply said, “He had nothing to do with this. This isn’t normal.”

Chris got up then, like he was going to walk out again, and Brax wasn’t going to let him, not without saying everything he needed to say. He grabbed Chris by his shirt and his arm and slammed him back into the cupboards behind him, kept him pressed against the wall. 

“Fuck normal, you hear me? So yeah, maybe if I’d been a single child or some bullshit, I’d have a house and a white picket fence and a wife or whatever you’re imagining for me right now. But I don’t give a fuck about that guy I would have been, he’s not me. The guy I am? He doesn’t want to live without his stubborn asshole of a brother, you get me?”

He knew he was asking for a fight now, but that was still better than Chris leaving, so he slammed him into the wall again, held him there and drank in their closeness, how familiar Chris’s body still felt against his, the hard lines of it, the smell of that soap Chris had used for as long as Brax could remember. It made his chest tight and his cock hard, and the thought of having it slip through his fingers again was more than he could bear.

“You don’t get to decide if I want this, you, all of it,” he went on. “You wanna fuck off again, be my guest, but you don’t get to pin that on me, like it’s for my own good. You don’t get to say you’re protecting me when you disappear on me. I missed you too much for that.”

He didn’t get punched, didn’t get pushed. Didn’t get anything but that rhythmic tapping of Chris’s fingers, now against the side of his leg, and then a quick glance at his face, a minuscule smile flitting over his lips and disappearing just as fast.

“You too, Braxton.”

“Yeah?” Brax said because he hadn’t been prepared for that.

“Yeah,” Chris echoed. He raised his other hand now, the one that wasn’t tapping against his leg, and slowly ran his fingers through Brax’s hair, combing through it curiously. “Your hair is much longer than it used to be.”

“Do you mind? I can cut it if you mind, doesn’t matter to me.” He leant into Chris’s touch, didn’t give a damn that it was pathetic how desperate he was for this, for him. Some other guy had touched him just like that yesterday – Brax was never shy about demanding what he wanted, and what he wanted was always to be touched the way his brother had – but it hadn’t been the same, hadn’t been anything like this.

“I don’t know yet,” Chris said. He pulled a little on Brax’s hair now, made him cock his head to the side. His gaze was fixed on Brax’s mouth now, on the way Brax’s lips parted when he moaned quietly. “We can find out.”

Brax slipped his hand underneath Chris’s shirt, dug his fingers firmly into his shoulder. It wouldn’t quite bruise, but hopefully there’d be time for that, to leave the kinds of bruises on each other that didn’t simply hurt the next day, but made them shiver every time they brushed their fingers over them. Bruises that had always been a kind of promise, that they’d always be there for each other, that they’d be back for more. Chris closed his eyes when he pulled Brax closer by his hair until their cheeks were pressed together and Chris’s lips moved against his skin.

“So you’re staying?” Brax said, wincing at the way his voice cracked a little, like he was too afraid of the answer. “We’ve always made a good team, and you need to rebuild a new identity anyway, and I’m really fucking tired of not knowing where you are.”

Chris kissed his neck, right below the jaw, and then he wrapped his other arm around Brax to haul him closer still, flush against him. Didn’t push him away any more than he had when they’d been younger. That at least hadn’t changed, even if Brax only half knew how to talk to him and what to say and what to keep to himself, but touching him? Touching him was still so goddamn familiar his hands moved all on their own. Pulled Chris’s shirt over his head and then his own, stroked over Chris’s side just the way he liked it, firmly enough that it didn’t tickle, always pressing a little too hard into his skin. And Chris’s hands felt just as confident on his skin, holding Brax against him, pulling on his hair, and then there was that firm, unmistakable pressure against his scalp that made Brax grin with anticipation.

“Are you staying?” he asked again, lips pressed against the corner of Brax’s mouth. They didn’t always kiss, like that was somehow one step too far, or maybe Chris just didn’t always feel like it. Brax had never minded, not with everything else they had shared.

“For a while,” Chris said. It wasn’t a very good answer, but at least Brax didn’t think he was lying. That, too, didn’t seem to have changed. “If I have to leave, I’ll tell you first.”

“Attaboy,” Brax said and laughed at the mildly irritated look that got him. “You better.”

He went to his knees then, guided by Chris’s hand in his hair, then pressed his cheek against Chris’s crotch and listened to the barely stifled groan that escaped his brother’s lips. 

He figured the least he could do after what Chris had done was to tease him a bit. Or a lot. His brother sure as hell deserved it.


End file.
